Archaeology Wordsmith

CATEGORY: artifactDEFINITION: A curved wooden throwing stick with a bi-convex or semi-oval cross-section, distributed widely over Australia except for Tasmania, and used for hunting and warfare. The boomerang had marked regional variations in design and decoration. Returning boomerangs were used in Australia as playthings, in tournament competition, and by hunters to imitate hawks for driving flocks of game birds into nets strung from trees. The returning boomerang was developed from the nonreturning types, which swerve in flight. Boomerangs excavated from peat deposits in Wyrie Swamp, South Australia, have been dated to c 8000 BC. Boomerang-shaped, nonreturning weapons were used by the ancient Egyptians, by Indians of California and Arizona, and in southern India for killing birds, rabbits, and other animals.

CATEGORY: cultureDEFINITION: A lithic tradition of southeastern Brazil, dated to the 5th millennium BC and continuing into the Christian era. The earliest artifacts are rough unifacial flakes and some bifacial boomerang shapes, flake knives, choppers, and scrapers -- all for hunting. Bifacial projectile points begin to appear more in the 3rd millennium BC and semi-polished axes and grooved bola stones were added in c 2000-1000 BC. The complex had no pottery.

Little Salt Spring

CATEGORY: siteDEFINITION: A prehistoric site in Florida with hearths, a boomerang, projectile point, and shell of extinct giant land tortoise from the Palaeoindian period (12,000-8500 BP). There was an Archaic occupation (6800-5200 BP) with burials of 1000 individuals preserved in peat.

Wyrie Swamp

CATEGORY: siteDEFINITION: Site in southeast South Australia with the world's oldest-known barbed spears -- and the oldest boomerangs yet found in Australia. Gambieran stone artifacts and the boomerangs, barbed and plain spears, and digging sticks occur at the 10,000-year-old site.